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The best way to understand this is to look at their financial statements: https://investor.uber.com/news-events/news/press-release-details/2019/Uber-Q1-2019-Ea

The best way to understand this is to look at their financial statements: https://investor.uber.com/news-events/news/press-release-details/2019/Uber-Q1-2019-Earnings/ https://investor.uber.com/news-events/news/press-release-det... Generally, you would go to the 10-K to get a quick snap shot. I direct you to look at the "CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS" You can see that they made about 1.4B (in Q1) after paying the drivers but then they spent 2.2B on: Operations and support, Sales and marketing, Research and development, General and administrative Note, of these categories, Sales and Marketing was the largest and eliminating it completely (not recommending this) would get them to break even.

davewritescode 7y ago
Agreed, but like others have pointed out “marketing” includes marketing to drivers with incentives to drive. They’re not running advertisements they’re subsidizing rides on the driver and passenger side and calling it part of their marketing spend. The problem with Uber is that their technology isn’t that innovative and their platform isn’t that sticky.
- rlanday 7y ago
  The technology only seems "not that innovative" because they've been around for a decade. The whole concept wouldn't be possible without widespread smartphone adoption which occurred in that time. The real problem with the business is the economics don't work. Riders use Uber because it's cheap and driver use it because they get paid enough to make it worth their while (or at least they believe that to be the case). These two things are only the case because they're blowing billions of dollars on subsidies.